Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a powerful website crawler that allows you to audit various SEO elements of your site. It’s widely used by digital marketers and SEO professionals for identifying on-page SEO issues, broken links, and much more. In this guide, we’ll break down how to use Screaming Frog SEO Spider for a comprehensive website audit, highlighting its key features and how to get the most out of this tool.
1. Getting Started with Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Before diving into the audit process, you need to download and install Screaming Frog SEO Spider. The tool is available for both free and paid versions. The free version allows you to crawl up to 500 URLs, while the paid version offers unlimited crawling along with additional features.
Steps to Install:
- Visit the Screaming Frog website.
- Download the tool based on your operating system (Windows, macOS, or Ubuntu).
- Install and launch the program.
Once installed, you’re ready to start crawling your website.
2. Starting a Website Crawl
After launching Screaming Frog SEO Spider, enter the URL of your website in the search bar at the top of the application and press Start. The tool will begin crawling your site, collecting a vast amount of SEO data.
Key Metrics Crawled:
- Meta Titles and Descriptions
- Header Tags (H1, H2, etc.)
- Status Codes (404, 301, 200)
- Canonical URLs
- Internal and External Links
- Page Load Times
- Image Alt Texts and Sizes
The crawl will analyze every element on your site, allowing you to audit all aspects of your SEO.
Pro Tip: If you only want to crawl specific parts of your website, you can use the Include and Exclude filters to focus the crawl on specific directories or pages.
3. Analyzing Crawl Results
Once the crawl is complete, Screaming Frog will display a detailed breakdown of your website’s performance, broken down into various tabs such as Internal, External, Response Codes, Images, Directives, and more. Each tab offers different SEO data points that can be used to identify potential issues.
Key Areas to Focus On:
- Response Codes: This tab shows HTTP status codes like 404 (not found) and 301 (redirects). You should check for broken links (404 errors) and unnecessary redirects.
- Page Titles: Screaming Frog lists all meta titles, their length, and any duplicates. If your titles are too short, too long, or missing, it will flag them for you.
- Meta Descriptions: Like page titles, Screaming Frog highlights any issues with your meta descriptions, such as being too short, too long, or duplicated across multiple pages.
- H1 and H2 Tags: Headings are critical for SEO, and Screaming Frog shows all your H1 and H2 tags. Look for missing or duplicate heading tags that need fixing.
- Canonical URLs: Ensure that canonical tags are correctly implemented to avoid content duplication issues.
- Images: Screaming Frog checks your images for missing alt text and large file sizes that can slow down your website. It’s important to compress large images and add descriptive alt attributes.
How to Fix Issues:
For each issue, Screaming Frog provides a list of URLs affected. You can export this data to CSV files for further analysis or to share with your web developer to make the necessary fixes.
4. Finding and Fixing Broken Links
Broken links negatively affect user experience and SEO. Screaming Frog makes it easy to spot these links in the Response Codes tab. Simply filter by 404 (Not Found) to identify any broken internal or external links.
Steps to Fix:
- Internal Broken Links: Fix these by updating the URL to the correct destination or removing the broken link altogether.
- External Broken Links: Either reach out to the site owner to fix the link, or you can redirect users to a working page using a 301 redirect.
Pro Tip: Always check for broken links regularly, especially if you run a large website with dynamic content.
5. Auditing Meta Titles and Descriptions
Meta titles and descriptions play a vital role in SEO, helping search engines understand your content and influencing click-through rates. Screaming Frog displays the length and uniqueness of both titles and descriptions.
Common Issues to Address:
- Too Long or Too Short Titles/Descriptions: Meta titles should ideally be between 50-60 characters, and descriptions should be around 155-160 characters.
- Duplicate Titles/Descriptions: Screaming Frog flags duplicate metadata. Each page should have a unique title and description that accurately reflects the content.
Fix:
Go through each flagged title and description, updating them for length, clarity, and uniqueness to improve both SEO rankings and user experience.
6. Checking Page Depth and Internal Linking
Page depth refers to how many clicks it takes for a visitor to reach a particular page from your homepage. Screaming Frog shows a crawl depth for each URL, which helps you ensure that important pages aren’t buried too deep within your website.
Importance of Internal Linking:
Internal links distribute link equity and help search engines crawl your site more effectively. Ensure that high-priority pages (such as those driving conversions) are easy to access within a few clicks and that they have sufficient internal links pointing to them.
Pro Tip: Pages with more internal links are often seen as more important by search engines.
7. Checking Site Speed and Images
Page load time is a critical factor for both user experience and SEO. Screaming Frog SEO Spider integrates with Google PageSpeed Insights, enabling you to audit the speed of your site.
Steps for Improving Site Speed:
- Compress large images: Optimize images flagged as too large.
- Minify CSS and JavaScript: Remove unnecessary code from your CSS and JavaScript files.
- Leverage Browser Caching: Ensure caching is enabled to load frequently visited pages faster.
Pro Tip: Use the “Images” tab in Screaming Frog to spot large or missing image alt text, ensuring all visuals on your website are optimized for SEO.
8. Audit for Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can hurt your SEO rankings. Screaming Frog makes it easy to identify pages with duplicate content or metadata. Check the Duplicate filter under the Page Titles and Meta Description tabs to ensure all your content is unique.
Steps to Fix Duplicate Content:
- Canonical Tags: Use canonical tags to signal to search engines which version of the content is the original.
- 301 Redirects: Redirect duplicate content to the original page using 301 redirects.
9. Exporting the Audit Report
Once you’ve completed your analysis, Screaming Frog allows you to export the data into CSV files. This is useful for sharing insights with your team or creating a detailed report. To export, click the Export button at the top-right corner of the screen and choose the section you want to download.
10. Advanced Features (Paid Version)
The paid version of Screaming Frog offers more advanced features for in-depth audits. Some of the key features include:
- Google Analytics and Search Console Integration: Pull additional data from Google services to enrich your crawl results.
- Custom Extraction: Scrape custom data points like structured data or specific HTML elements from your site.
- JavaScript Rendering: Crawl websites that rely on JavaScript, allowing for a more complete audit.
Conclusion
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is an indispensable tool for conducting website audits. Whether you’re looking to fix broken links, optimize metadata, improve page speed, or identify duplicate content, this tool provides comprehensive insights that can dramatically improve your website’s SEO performance. By regularly auditing your site with Screaming Frog, you can stay ahead of potential SEO issues and ensure your website performs optimally for both users and search engines.
